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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785196">Lessons On Loving A Poet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyreyalltheway/pseuds/TheWoman'>TheWoman (reyreyalltheway)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Solo Anthology [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(a failed) attempt at narrative cohesion, A Convoluted Tale of Dramatic Misunderstandings, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Writing &amp; Publishing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at humour, Because Some Chaos Needed Expelling, Ben Solo is A Pining Poet, F/M, Light Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Multiple formats, Mutual Pining, Pining, Poetry, Rey Is the Pining Muse, Some Fluff, Songfic, Where The Author Gives Awards To Everyone, attempt at poetry, inspired by ms taylor swift, reylofolklore, semi-linear narrative</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:20:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyreyalltheway/pseuds/TheWoman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey keeps seeing mysterious poems written in her old books and college notebooks.</p>
<p>They make her reminisce about the first, and only, person she had ever fallen in love with, who currently lives worlds away as a highly successful author, and really, why would she even think about texting him first?</p>
<p>It’s not like he’s got time for nobodies, like old college friends...</p>
<p><i><b>or, the one where she wants to know who could have written all these old poems, and everybody wants to know about the girl in all of his. </b></i><br/> <br/>[Inspired by "the 1", by Taylor Swift, for the Reylo Folklore Anthology]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Solo Anthology [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Galactic Idiots Collection, Reylo Folklore Flash Fic</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lessons On Loving A Poet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyOdessa/gifts">IvyOdessa</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389424">the feel-good hit of the summer</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinn/pseuds/disco_vendetta">disco_vendetta (brinn)</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Aubrey. :)</p>
<p>I hope this brings you as much joy as I had in seeing your name in my DMs! &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>we were something, don't you think so?</em><br/>
<em>rosé flowing with your chosen family</em><br/>
<em>and it would've been sweet</em><br/>
<em>if it could've been me</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> 1: </em>
</p>
<p>Rey finds the first of them on a Saturday.</p>
<p>While she knows spring is the season for cleaning, Rey likes to make it extra special by making sure she cleans proper <em> only </em>on leap years. She likes preserving the chaos; the mental acuity required to know exactly where her things are in the mess of her apartment, she tells her curious friends, is good practice.</p>
<p>“Rey, if you’re telling us you live in a pigsty because it ‘trains your brain’ to remember where you put your bra—”</p>
<p>“How <em> dare </em>you.”</p>
<p>“—after flinging it aside from last night’s hookup, I mean… I just…” Rose throws her hands up, sloshing a bit of her quarter-filled glass of wine onto Kaydel’s hair. “Well whataddaya say to that, guys? Cheers.”</p>
<p>And so it goes.</p>
<p>(Rey doesn’t correct them: all her friends think that she, like any self-respecting single New Yorker, is on an app for “regular sexual maintenance”, as Poe likes to put it. She isn’t. She would <em> love </em>to be. But she isn’t.)</p>
<p>It <em> is </em> a leap year this year, unfortunately, and Rey must face the fact that her four-year no-cleaning policy is predicated on the strict observance of her February 29th spring cleaning day.</p>
<p>It is a Saturday, Rose and Kaydel drop by, with their buckets and cleaning gloves and shit-eating grins; it’s become a ritual, a tradition of sorts, for them to have this once-in-four-years opportunity to colourfully insult Rey’s love of hoarding.</p>
<p>Three hours in, and Rey hears the first strains of roasting:</p>
<p>“Oh my <em> god</em>, Rey, did you keep your college notes for that lit class?”</p>
<p>Rey cringes from her place in the kitchen, reaching up to wipe the tops of her cabinets with a damp rag. The noonday slicks her temples with sweat, her apartment is a <em> mess </em>on its way to its cleanly rebirth, but now she feels cold with embarrassment.</p>
<p>“Oh my god, you did! You totally did, you <em> perv! </em>Kay, come look at this!” </p>
<p>“It’s not like that!” she tries to scramble down her step ladder, and her floorspace is a weirdly-shaped one-bedroom monstrosity, which means that her books and trinkets pile all over in miniature towers; her shelves are upturned, her wardrobe looks like a riot. Her kitchen is… deeply un-kitchen-ly.</p>
<p>She nearly trips on a cluster of potted cacti as she rushes to the living room where Kaydel gets there first, and Rose is sitting on the floor, perusing some <em> very personal </em>college memorabilia.</p>
<p>Which, okay, in defense of Rey’s decade-old accidental enrolment for a literature elective centred on <em> the historical evolution of erotic fiction, </em>it’s been ten years.</p>
<p>“It has been ten years!” Rey glares as Rose stands up abruptly to keep Rey from snatching the nearly crispy yellow pad pages.</p>
<p>“So, why you blushing, then?”</p>
<p>Kaydel snickers. Rey sighs.</p>
<p>Rose smirks. A very knowing, evil grin that tilts one side of her lovely round face into mischief.</p>
<p>But before her friends could follow that line of unproductive thinking, Rey distracts them by bringing out the wine glasses and a bottle of rosé. As expected, her houseguests whoop and yell, and all is forgotten in favour of the main reason they’re here: a good time.</p>
<p>Except, all is not forgotten.</p>
<p>For the succeeding hours Rey watches her friends get plastered and talk about their work and their lives and reminisce about college amidst the scattered entrails of her apartment — and all Rey can think about is a certain someone who had signed up for that very same erotic fiction class with her.</p>
<p>She wonders how Ben Solo is doing right now.</p>
<p>If she had any sort of spine, she wouldn’t have to wonder; she could always just google him.</p>
<p>What with him being a world-renowned, super popular writer, and all that.</p>
<p>But Rey isn’t going to do that. She’s not going to <em> google </em> him, or search him up on his socials or some such shit. And she will certainly <em> not </em>text out of nowhere. Not when there are actual NYT articles about his work, not when she’s seen the cover of his latest book in Times Square every day on her commute to Resistance Publications. Now when she’s had to pre-order his constantly out-of-stock latest novel.</p>
<p>Not when it’s a little too late for any of that.</p>
<p>God forbid, some old college classmate of his texts him out of the blue, when he’s got the world at his fingertips and is probably a very busy man with a very productive writing career that takes him to places that don’t require additional nuisances from nobodies like her.</p>
<p>Hell, he probably even has a girlfriend right now.</p>
<p>(Rey doesn’t know. And she’d very much like to keep it that way.)</p>
<p>So instead, she lifts her half-empty glass of rosé as a giggly Kaydel proposes a toast:</p>
<p>“To college! May it — <em> hic — </em>live forever in our memories to remind us all of our — our collective idiot-ness!” Kaydel laughs, nearly spills alcohol on the rest of Rey’s class notes.</p>
<p>“Hear, hear! Cheers to all the boys we <em> never </em>should have fucked!” </p>
<p>“And to all the boys we really should have!” Rey adds with the same level of joking mirth, and they all laugh… until Kaydel pulls up the yellow pad paper that has Rey pre-emptively wincing.</p>
<p>“Okay, but Rey, listen. Rey. Hun. <em> Listen. </em> I just want you to know that — <em> hic — </em>that this is, like really good. God-tier, and all that. You should, like, publish this and shit.”</p>
<p>Rey feels rather like a marshmallow exposed to the open stove.</p>
<p>“Oh god, let’s— let’s not, please. That was <em> ages </em>ago—”</p>
<p>“‘<em>What can I say? I would have you in every universe, in every way’,</em>” Kaydel reads, and Rey pauses.</p>
<p>“Ooh, that’s deep,” Rose closes her eyes.</p>
<p>“Can I see that?”</p>
<p>And when Kaydel hands over the overly folded piece of paper with its faded ink scrawls and little notes in the corner, Rey realises that she had never written that passage. At least, she doesn’t remember so. She reads the rest of it, looped in handwriting that does not belong to her in neat, fuzzy blue: </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em> what can i say? i would have you in every universe, in every way. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i would have you in the dawn, before the earth could yawn, before the world could rise i would have you in my arms </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i would have you in your noonday anger. if i could, i would have you in your wrath, in the violence of your eyes </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> you could tell me to run from you; i would, and i have, and i would circle the world and run for you, my love, i would run until you found me again at your back, until you let me stand by your side </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i would have you in the twilight; </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> that i could have you in the twilight; </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> that i could have you </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>But it ends there, the author clearly running out of paper corner as the letters faded into tiny script near the edge, neatly curved in cursive.</p>
<p>She could almost swear that the writing was familiar, except she does not have the courage for that level of delusion.</p>
<p>Still, Rey found herself tucking the page where their spring cleaning would not endanger it, just as she found herself reading and re-reading the beautiful passage, wondering idly about it, and afraid of the answer of to whom it might belong…</p>
<p>And for whom it might have been written.</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> Son of the Soul: Ben Solo on the renaissance of the handwritten letter, his new novel, the poem anthologies that launched his career, and the muse he never wants to talk about   </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> by JANNAH CALRISSIAN </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> BENJAMIN SOLO does not like doing interviews, I’m told by his manager. I tell her that’s alright. I hate interviewing, too.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> We arrive at a compromise: I get to be one of the five, maybe six or so interviews that the most-wanted young author was willing to be part of (in the last five years). “You’re number four,” his manager tells me. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I ask if I can call him up at seven in the evening, London time, where the reclusive writer is currently staying to promote his latest already-bestselling novel “The Death Star”. His manager laughs, “I’ll give you his number. Just text him anytime.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> It would seem that Solo’s hours are unpredictable. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I get antsy when I’m not in New York. It messes with my body clock,” he tells me, apologising for being awake at two in the morning; I tell him that’s fine, it’s six p.m. where I’m at. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Huh. I didn’t realise that,” he says, before a slight delay. I think it might be the connection, and my life flashes before my eyes. But it’s not the connection; it’s just an artist, processing things. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Gravity’s strange. I’m constantly out of orbit when I’m doing these things,” he tells me. I scribble this down and circle the quote in my notes. “Not that — Sorry, I don’t want to sound awful, or ungrateful. I just miss... home. You have to stop me when I start rambling.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I tell him everything he says can and will be held against him. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He snorts. “Yeah, that’s— that’s my life now.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Twenty minutes in, and I realise that Ben Solo has a knack for making the conversation swerve into meaningful orbits — away from himself. I ask him how the tour is going, he tells me what a great place London is. I ask about his next project, he tells me about his friend and fellow writer-collaborator Armitage Hux. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I ask — as do all his interviewers, I’m sure — about his muse. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He tells me something that explains why he’s not very fond of interviews. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I’m awful at condensing things,” he says. “There’s too much room for error when I’m talking. I’m told I’m not very good at this talking thing. But when I’m writing, and this is— this is gonna sound cheesy as fuck, but my heart is filtered down on paper or, or screen, if you will. It’s better that way. I get to say what needs to be said. And not, you know, so many other things.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>  (Rolling Stone magazine » ISSUE 1143 | SEPTEMBER 2019) </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> 2: </em>
</p>
<p>Rey’s days are monotonous;</p>
<p>They have been blurred into an unsubstantiated length, ever since she discovered, upon entering the workforce — and upon being able to make enough of a living that the weeks don’t have to be a save-or-starve ordeal with her grocery list — that life is just a series of the same things, with different endings.</p>
<p>Existing, Rey found, was based on being able to stay afloat of said things: go to work, earn money, pay bills, eat, sleep, dream of things long gone, maintain human contact.</p>
<p>She’d had enough of a rough childhood to know how to be grateful. And of course, she would <em> never </em>take her life right now for granted; she’s come a long way, thank you very much.</p>
<p>But every once in a while, she’d catch a glimpse of black sweaters or dark hair or a particularly breathtaking line of prose — or his name, in a headline — and her mind mutes itself.</p>
<p>(She scrolls past “<em>Flying Solo: How The Legacy Son is Leaving His Own Mark In Literature” </em>with only the smallest pause. The photo is of him staring into the camera; his discomfort is plain to her and she smiles, knowing how much he hates being photographed. She puts her phone away as she concentrates on settling the disturbance in her chest. She stares at the calendar on her screen, mind anywhere but here.)</p>
<p>“Hello? Earth to Rey?”</p>
<p>She snaps out of her reverie and looks up to see an almost irritated Phasma, all glorious six-feet, eight-thousand-inches of her, looking down. Rey stammers her apologies, assures her boss that yes, the report is accounted for, no she didn’t book that meeting over the other one, etcetera, etcetera. And so it goes.</p>
<p>She side-eyes her phone.</p>
<p>Before shoving it into her steel cabinet and locking the cabinet and throwing the tiny key into the abyss of her large canvas purse.</p>
<p>She hasn’t stopped thinking about him since that mysterious passage she found, the familiar mantra of <em> what if, what if, </em> like a dangerous slope that is tilting her world off-axis.</p>
<p>Rey shakes her head of it.</p>
<p>No. No, that’s… that is a <em> hard no </em>for her.</p>
<p>He may have been the closest she had to real belonging, once upon a time. In another universe, perhaps. But she lives in <em> this one, </em> and in this universe, he belongs to a world outside of her own. He’s a successful author, he’s somewhere out there living his best life. Living <em> his </em>dream… and perhaps a little of hers. And sure, he’s her friend. She thinks of him as a friend, even if she’s not so sure she is held in the same regard. In the same affection.</p>
<p>And that’s totally fine.</p>
<p>She’s a girl he once went to university with. They keep in touch, sure. But only just.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, she’s rather happy for him. Very, actually. Quite proud, she tells her friends during an unplanned Thursday brunch at <em> Maz’s, </em>burning company time in broad daylight because fuck capitalism.</p>
<p>Rose gives her a look, in bold, memetype letters: <em> Sure, Jan. </em></p>
<p>“Oh, what?” Rey doesn’t mean to get defensive, and so stabs her cherry tomato with a little more vindication than is strictly acceptable at this hour, in upper Manhattan.</p>
<p>“I’m just saying—”</p>
<p>“No, you’re <em> implying </em>things.”</p>
<p>Rose flails like <em> well, duh?! </em> “We’ve been over this! Like, a bajillion times! This always happens. <em> Always. </em> Rey, no— don’t you <em> — </em> No, <em> this</em>. This is what I mean: yes, I know he’s all, like, ‘Mr. Bestselling Author’ or whatever—”</p>
<p>“He’s won awards, too.”</p>
<p>“— and he’s — well, <em> see? </em> See what you just did there?”</p>
<p>“I have no idea what you’re on about,” is hastily spoken through a mouthful of seasonal greens. </p>
<p>“What I’m on about is how you’ve got a guy you’ve known for <em> ten years. </em> Ten years, Rey. Since <em> college, </em> and I will bet my liver you’re absolutely <em> crushing </em>on him—”</p>
<p>“You’re impossible."</p>
<p>“—but you’re secretly hung up on how—”</p>
<p>In evidence of a higher power, Rey is saved from having to blunder through Rose’s accusations with the arrival of Zorii.</p>
<p>Zorii Bliss is the kind of native Manhattanese who looks like she’s got an overfull Google calendar, does yoga on lunch breaks, and could talk her way into a full, unpaid stay at the Four Seasons penthouse. What kind of startup does she run? How many zeros does she make a month? What non-dairy milk alternative does she take her coffee with? These are the fundamental questions of her existence.</p>
<p>(She is also possibly the only human being left in New York who has the skill of saying <em> no </em> to Poe Dameron. Which, in itself, should constitute an entire personality.)</p>
<p>She takes the seat beside Rey, her off-white, low-cut pantsuit subtly threatening to sue.</p>
<p>“Heard the tale-end of your convo,” she says without looking up as she peruses the menu, “This about Solo again?”</p>
<p>Rey blanches. Rose sips her wine and throws Zorii a <em> look. </em> Who, in turn, throws Rey a <em> look </em>of her own.</p>
<p>“This is bullying.” </p>
<p>“If you were working for me, this would be a memo,” Zorii flags a waiter who somehow intuits her order from a few hand gestures and mouthed phrases. “Also,” she adds, leaning both manicured fingers into a steeple on the table as she sets the menu aside, “you do realise he’s in Europe right now, right? So if you send him a message, which, let’s be honest, is the real question here anyway, you don’t have to worry about him not replying. You’re not gonna see him anytime soon. It’s anxiety-free.”</p>
<p>Rey stops poking at her arugula. Points have been made.</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p><b> <em>So, I just finished reading “The Death Star” and I am gutted. Supremely devastated. Pretty sure I’m not alone in this. The reviews are out, and they’re all hailing you as the next great author of the 21st century. More than a few references to Hemingway and Gaiman have been made.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> Jesus. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I know it’s only been out for just a week, but how did that project come about?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> A lot of things. I think, a lot of it is just me, you know, getting confronted with all my mistakes, all these… I guess ‘baggage’ is the right term but I hate that word. It’s really just a bunch of ‘what if’s when I was writing it. It was more for me. Never expected any of it to get published… which makes me sound like a complete douche now. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Thanks for walking into that. Totally my intention.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> You’re welcome. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>So anyway, back to topic: I know you hate interviews.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> With a fiery passion. Especially with old friends. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I’ll take it. But also: you’re famous, dude. Still not used to it? Not even after the success of [your first New York Times best-selling poetry anthology] ‘what i have to do’?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> That was something I’ve been working on for a while. I didn’t really… I didn’t expect anything from it. Hopefully, a job with living wages. Maybe some bylines in a few magazines or something. Not all this. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>But you’ve been busy. I just finished reading [‘what i have to do’] and immediately read [‘the star-killer’ and ‘the world between worlds’, respectively]. I already texted you my praises so I won’t repeat myself on record.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> That’s a shame. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Don’t push it. But I wanted to ask: overnight fame. A huge following that doubled in four months, and a Netflix deal. Those poems launched you, and made a completely new category dubbed as ‘The Tortured Millennial Soulspace’.”</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [laughs] I remember that one.  </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Yes, thank you to Reddit and Twitter for that viral video. One Beyoncé reference later, and some more shout-outs from pop-culture icons, you’ve got over millions of followers now. </em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> It’s surreal. That’s all the words I have about it. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>That’s not a lot of words for a writer.</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> I’m saving them. Trying not to run out. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>What, like, gas?</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> Exactly like gas. Like a word tank. That gets refilled by the sandman every night. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>So what does Ben Solo dream about?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> Bagels. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Must be some really inspiring bagels, for you to write all that pining and romance.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> Oh, they are. There’s a place called Maz’s, it’s one of my favourite cafes anywhere in the world. They have the best bagels. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Since you keep dodging what I’m trying to get at—</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> I knew you were gonna go there. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Who’s the girl?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> What girl? </em></p>
<p><b> <em>After all we’ve been through.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> You mean “despite”. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I’m hurt, Ben. I thought we were friends.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [chuckles] I thought so too, man. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>So, no girl? That constant, heart-wrenching dedication for her in all of your books is just a marketing ploy for your millions of female fans?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> I didn’t say that. But I would rather not talk about the dedication. Writing is… hard enough. I mean, being vulnerable isn’t… it’s not easy. For me, at least, except in the process. But that part is the only part I keep for myself. So I’m a little protective of it. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>That’s fair. The internet has a collective idea of the kind of person you are. Funny enough, “protective” is on the list. Along with “intense” and “possessive”. </em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [chuckles] I’ve heard that, yeah. Though maybe not the whole internet, I’m sure. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>What does it feel like to be the poster child for the dream husband?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> I never thought about it. Lonely, I guess... I mean who isn’t, really? Um... maybe if I was a little less lonely, if I were a little less… I don’t know, lovesick or something, I’d be less interesting. Suffering sells, and all that shit. So I guess it balances out. That sounds horrible. I’m gonna regret that answer. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I can already see the trending tweets after this comes out.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [laughs] This is why I hate interviews. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Thanks for the time, man.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> No problem. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> Poe Dameron is a writer for The New Yorker, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of www.rebellionspark.lit. His work has appeared in TIME, GQ, Vogue, and Esquire. </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> 3: </em>
</p>
<p>Rey finds more of the strange writings in one of her favourite books;</p>
<p>She hasn’t read or seen her second-hand, college-aged copy of <em> Twelfth Night </em> in ten years <em> . </em> It happens by accident; she’s staring at the earmarked, mustardy paperback on top of the cardboard box pile labeled “to throw away PLEASE <b>!THROW AWAY!</b> SWEAR TO GOD REY” in Kaydel’s aggressive sharpie slashes.</p>
<p>She touches the dusty cover, its crooked, crispy spine begging for a mercy killing.</p>
<p>Ben had bought her this book, once upon a time.</p>
<p><em> “Haven’t really gone through Shakespeare,” </em> she had told him in shy confession, one gaudy August afternoon in the university bookshop, in their second year. <em> “I don’t understand it much. Sometimes, I think, maybe I’m too stupid for—” </em></p>
<p>
  <em> “Bullshit. You’re not stupid.” </em>
</p>
<p>He had bought her the book. Then he nagged her to read it, in his version of “nagging”. So it went, the blooming of something between them, a large balloon filled with sacred nine o’clocks in the library, coinciding class breaks around campus, where they’d both read and she would occasionally ask him what certain passages meant, and he would always explain to her with a kind of saintly patience that felt undeserved<em>. </em></p>
<p>Rey smiles at the memories.</p>
<p>In hindsight, perhaps that had been the start of how she fell in love with him — through words, traded across time in small spaces; but isn’t that how it always goes? — though she could never pinpoint any <em> one </em> moment. </p>
<p>It was always as if she had been in love with him for ages, and it wasn’t a thing that happened as much as a thing that will never <em> not </em>happen.</p>
<p>(Something she has given up on trying to make <em> un</em>-happen.)</p>
<p>She sighs, and picks up <em> Twelfth Night</em>; settles herself on her lumpy, grey-green couch, tucking her feet against March’s last remnants of winter.</p>
<p>But when she opens the book, it falls to the most earmarked page, somewhere in Act IV;</p>
<p>A scrap of paper falls on her lap. Rey picks it up; it seems like a makeshift bookmark, some cardstock that looks surprisingly good for its presumed age. And on it is an almost-faded, pencilled note in beautiful script:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em> for falling, </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i am young, and stupid, and i don’t know. i don’t know, and i don’t know how long i can stand not to. i’ll stand, though. i’ll stand for you. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> and maybe when i am old enough to grow teeth, i can bite all these bullets that have been stuck inside me, lodged between skin and bone and breath. lodged between what you have left me, and all i have left. </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>She reads it once, twice, fifteen times.</p>
<p>She reads it until the afternoon slants inside her apartment, stamping her carpet with golden rectangles. Then she goes through the old book, carefully turning page after page, to check if it’s the only one. It is.</p>
<p>Her left leg falls asleep, and she nearly wobbles into an accident when she stands up to make herself some tea, to clear her head. </p>
<p>Because those looping letters are both familiar, and <em> impossible</em>.</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> I MEET Benjamin Organa Skywalker-Solo at a cafe in the corner of rue Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie, in Paris; from here, one of the busiest areas in this tourist-heavy city, I opt for a booth at the cavernous, internal end of the cafe, more for the guy I used to share a table with back when we were both freshmen in Boston. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He arrives at exactly two minutes past two, and he still says sorry. For being late, but also for forgetting to text that he would be. I try to shake his hand, which he ignores in favour of a half-hug. Exactly the kind of thing I would expect from the quiet, six-foot-three champion rower of Chandrila University. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> But not from a three-time Hugo Award-winning, New-York-Times #1 bestselling author. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Solo, whose face has become somewhat of an internet sensation when a video went viral of his spoken-word performance of one of his poems, does not seem to have changed much in the last ten years. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> (Yes, I’ve read “on matters of sunshine”; no, I will not elaborate on that experience. Yes, tears were involved.) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I mean, it’s strange to be recognised,” he tells me as though we were back at the greasy tables in the seventh floor of the Raddus tower. “Writing is something that private people can enjoy. I didn’t think my face was going to help sell any of my books. That was definitely… not planned.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> And yet. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The not-insignificant, cult-like following of the thirty-two-year-old author organically grew over the course of three years, two novels, and three anthologies, with a little growth spurt last year. But his presence is just the same as I’ve always remembered: slightly drunk off of solitude, a little introverted, a little more true than everyone else. Which reminds me to start our conversation with the most important question that his fans will be reading my article for: </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Is he single? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Solo laughs. I am reminded that his notorious unattachment was popular gossip ten years ago, to the dismal joy of the Chandrila student population. I tell him this, and he laughs again. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Sure. You can put that down,” he says. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> But to that question in particular, he keeps mum. Sorry, ladies.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I ask him if his refusal to say anything about his relationship status has anything to do with the mysterious girlfriend he always dedicates his works to. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He chews thoughtfully on this. He sees the trap a mile away, of course.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Does there have to be a girlfriend?” he asks, wiping the orange pizza grease off his fingers. “I don’t think there has to be a girlfriend. Maybe there’s a girl. Maybe somewhere, in another universe, she’s my girlfriend, or my soulmate. Or my wife. But in this one, I think she can just be a girl. And I can just be a guy, writing about her. Hopelessly in love, in a kind of… I don’t know if it’s cowardice or bravery but maybe those are just two words for the same thing. And I think, I hope, that’s enough.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Girlfriend or not, there can be no doubt that Ben Solo is in the right career. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> — Finn Storm, for Vanity Fair (November 2019) </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>Rey finds a few more writings that night, tucked in secret places;</p>
<p>She opened a bottle of wine, sat down in her living room, and pulled out all her old books — the ones for keeping and the ones for throwing away. She unearthed ancient, three-ring binders and brittle, plastic accordion folders and notebooks and index cards of her college days. One by one, she leafed through them, her fingers just short of trembling.</p>
<p>The first, she sees in her algebra notes: the same blue-inked, fine-tipped gel pen, and the same slanting bobbles of cursive letters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em> i hate these numbered tragedies. i don’t want once, i don’t want never. i don’t want bits and pieces across time and space. i want always. i want forever. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i am many things to hate, but mostly, i am selfish. and never more selfish for this.   </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> but what i want is immaterial. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> you are immaterial; a disembodied dream. a tangent too far away. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> where do we go from here? i am only a man,  </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>The final word is scribbled harshly over, blunt blue ink covering it in redaction. Rey tucks this aside, along with three others that she finds in various notebooks and printed article readings, falling apart at their stapled corners.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>(<em>how can you fill me with so much longing, and so much hope, and so much, and too much, and yet, not enough? never enough, or is it that i am never enough? i cannot get enough of you, and i will never be enough for you.</em>)</p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>She is shaking. To say that she has no idea where these strange poems and letters are coming from is a lie;</p>
<p>She <em> does. </em>Have an idea, that is.</p>
<p>More like a ridiculous, absolutely <em>balls-to-the-wall</em> theory that she does not have it in herself to believe. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>(<em>you’re dead; open-eyed, pale-faced, point-blank dead. your heartbeat stopped curving around mine at half-past midnight. i can’t feel your light. </em></p>
  <p>
    <em> a response: my bones break themselves. my spirit unknits. my breaths won’t start. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i fade away for you; </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> from the dust i was; in the dust, i find. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i wake up and my body is here, but my mind </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> is missing, like half of my heart.) </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>And yet, her trembling lingers.</p>
<p>She starts to cry in earnest when she finds a piece of her own writing. Her feelings, on record. A little thing in the corner of her third-year notebook, nestled in fits of frenzied scrawls, when she was cramming her thesis between work and school and fifteen cups of coffee a week:</p>
<p><em> Be with me</em>, she wrote. </p>
<p>Neat, precise. Fitted perfectly in the overworn margins of a first draft research proposal outline.</p>
<p>The tears fall, because she remembers where the words came from.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Rey?” She looked up at him. He looked closer to worry than anything else. He shut his book in his one hand and leaned forward, “Rey, how many hours do you get to sleep every day?” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> She didn’t answer; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He bought her coffee anyway, and stayed until two in the morning. He woke her an hour later. He drove her back to the dorms. </em>
</p>
<p>Rey swipes at her cheeks. There is a fluttery, warm, bittersweet ache that crawls into her inhales. She bites her lip.</p>
<p>The memories flood, and so do the feelings — very sharp and caustic. Hyperacidic in how they eat at her. She remembers the wanting just as clearly as she remembers his smile and the constellations on his face.</p>
<p>Her words remind: she had been so scared that evening, when he brought her home; afraid that if she didn’t write some form of it down, it would burst out of her while she slept, crawl to him in the undead night of midterm hell-week, beg him to take her home, or call her <em> home, </em> whichever one came first<em>. </em></p>
<p>(<em>She </em> did. She came first, that night. And second, and third. And she had never felt shame before, but something about coming to the thought of Ben railing her against the not-soundproof wall of their tiny dorm room when her roommates could come in <em> any time </em> was enough to make her feel too dirty for the gutter.)</p>
<p><em> Be with me, </em>she wrote. And it was enough, she thought. She’d see the little note in the margin, and she would smile. </p>
<p>She realised she had been in love with him, then. Like the most important revelations in her life, it had arrived with little fanfare, and only a quiet breath. </p>
<p>She also remembers what happened afterward. </p>
<p>She shakes her head. The good memories are good; she doesn’t want to recollect the heartache.</p>
<p>(There is a reason she cannot bear to read him anymore.)</p>
<p>So she continues to browse through her books and notes for any more mysterious writings.</p>
<p>The fourth one reveals itself after the sun has gone down below and beyond the cityscape, and the streets echo in the nighttime darkness. In her notes for Professor Amilyn Holdo’s erotic literature class.</p>
<p>The note once again comes in fuzzy-aged, thinly-scrawled, blue-inked handwriting that isn’t hers. But this time, the letters are tight, closer together, almost tense in the way they try to fit between Rey’s on the paper, refusing to be read at first glance. She has to squint to make them out.</p>
<p>When she does, when she reads them, her eyes glaze over.</p>
<p>She feels her heart start to beat very fast.</p>
<p>She has to stare at them once, and then once more, a dangerous stirring inside her, and she is sure she is reading them wrong.</p>
<p>She sets the notes aside. Her palm comes to rub above her heart as she closes her eyes.</p>
<p>Warmth and ache and all the years turn to liquid. Her breaths have completely forsaken her.</p>
<p>(“<em>Erotic literature is, contrary to popular belief, not based on the sensuality of the body, but of the hunger of the female mind and soul. To be loved, and cared for, and seen.” </em>Professor Holdo’s words echo in memory. It all makes sense.)</p>
<p>Once more, she picks up the paper and reads:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em> i think about you a lot. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i think about your heart and your skin. your hair and eyes and the freckles in the dip of your collarbone as the light hits it just right one saturday afternoon when i hope you don't notice me staring as i think of all the ways i would like to taste you and my hands remind me to stop thinking my hands remind me that they want, too. even my hands think of you, they think of the curve of your waist and your wet bony ribcage when i first saw you get out of the pool and my fingers itch to trace every ridge every place that they can my hands. are in love with you. but my tongue wants to taste and i can’t stop thinking about how much i want you how much i wish i could embrace the very seams of you, it would be right to crack you open the way you’ve cracked me in half, it would only be fair and i wish your waist to not be so thin even when you are perfect too perfect too much for me. only, i should hate that no one is taking care of the perfection i see. you. and i think too much i know that but for once i just wish i could stop thinking and speak. </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
<p>Shaky, tired, and wracked with longing, Rey drains the rest of the bottle of wine and falls asleep in a curl on her carpet. Thinking about a tall, lovely boy who always wrote his class notes in cursive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> For my light; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> My faraway hope, my sun,   </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> If my wishes came true, it would’ve been you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> — Ben Solo, “the star-killer: poems for unnamable losses” (2013) </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> 5: </em>
</p>
<p>At seven p.m. the next day, Rey concedes to messaging him;</p>
<p>It happens because of three things.</p>
<p>The first of which is realising that he kept in touch with rather sporadic consistency... but for little reason;</p>
<p>Their messaging history, the little blue and grey bubbles that went back and forth between them, always started grey.</p>
<p>Sometimes innocuous things (“<em>Found your copy of The Bell Jar in my apartment </em> ” <em> “oh THAT’s where it went! read it yet?” “Not since HS, could read it again. You?” </em> ), sometimes mundane (“<em>What are your thoughts on pineapple politics</em>” <em> “do u have three hours?” “Take all my hours I need a brain break” </em> ), sometimes a birthday greeting (“<em>Twenty-six. Any plans? </em> ”) or a Tuesday greeting (“<em>Thought I saw you at the bus stop today </em> ” <em> “oh? where?” “The heights. Wasn’t you though” “how do you kno?” “I don’t. But I like to think I wouldn’t have missed a real chance to say hello.” “you didn’t. :) was stuck at home all day” “Tell me about it” </em> ) or a holiday greeting (“<em>Happy New Year’s, Rey.</em>”); it was always him.</p>
<p>The conversations would start with him, but it would run on for the rest of the day, care of her.</p>
<p>Always, one full day, allowing herself to unashamedly feed the little gremlin that starves for someone like him: smart, kind, an absolute gentleman. Who listens and cares and asks her about all the things they had talked about, in their last conversation. Who always asks about all her unpublished writings that would never see the light of day. Someone understanding, gentle, and tall—</p>
<p>(Alright, maybe not someone like him. Maybe just him.)</p>
<p>It was always a twenty-four hour period, before Rey started to draw the walls up again. Until her replies become shorter and the spaces between, longer. Until she bids him an unmistakable farewell for the time being, and the conversation dries up and trickles out and leaves her hollow and sad with the thought that it was always going to be this faraway thing, anyway.</p>
<p>He is a star, and her feet are on the ground, and she would hate to forget that.</p>
<p>The only times she ever texts him first are on his birthdays. </p>
<p>&lt;<em>Sun, 15 Jan, 7:34 AM</em>&gt;</p>
<p>
  <em> happy birthday, old man. :) plans? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Thank you. :) How are you? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> please tell me poe isn’t dragging you out to a party this year </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I have forbidden him on pain of death. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> remind him that i still have incriminating footage of soho from your last bash two years ago </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> …And you’re just now telling me? You holding out on me?? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you’re in it :) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I can’t believe this. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you were dancing. it was adorable! i couldn’t part with the footage </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Send it to me please </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> no :) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Please. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> NO. :) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Name your price. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> your heart on a platter :) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> (…) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> That is such a 2010 ask. Try something I can *actually* give. Maybe something you don’t already have. </em>
</p>
<p>They had kept in touch, after all. After graduating. After an incident Rey would rather not dwell on; they had remained friends, and Rey could not explain why it was so important to her, that they remained friends, even if they only ever messaged once a month or spontaneously caught up in a cafe twice a year, in the same corner of <em> Maz’s </em>, their same orders of bagels (him) and the extra large breakfast platter (her), talking until closing time, and even well past then. </p>
<p>(This is a lie. Rey <em>could </em>very much explain it, but that would require three straight shots of tequila and five bottles of beer and a self-awareness she doesn’t have.)</p>
<p>The second thing was this;</p>
<p>She checks his socials.</p>
<p>Rey doesn’t have social media. She told her friends it was what helped her manage her workload (there’s only so many ways to survive two jobs and a full-time credit load) way back when, but in truth, it was — it <em> is — </em> for the same reason she couldn’t bring herself to read his published works (or any articles about him, for that matter) despite having a copy of every one of them on display in her living room.</p>
<p>(<em>The Death Star, </em>however, is on her bedside table; she likes to look at the black and white author’s photo on the back sleeve cover.)</p>
<p>But enough hiding now.</p>
<p>So Rey wears her big-girl pants, settles down on her second-hand little kitchen table, and signs up for Instagram.</p>
<p>And anyway, worst comes to worst, she had only been afraid she would fall in love with him again. What better way to combat this, than to check if he already has a girlfriend?</p>
<p>(False. You can’t fall in love with someone again if you never fell out of love with them in the first place.)</p>
<p>It’s good, then, that the first thing she sees — as she searched him up and saw the little checkmark on his name — is a professionally-taken photo of him at a fancy party, with a slim, dark-haired modelesque girl at his side.</p>
<p><em> That’s okay</em>, Rey thinks. That’s good. At least this time, she doesn’t have to wonder.</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> ‘THE WORLD between worlds’ is, at once, both an overarching ode to the act of love, and a detailed, personal account of one man’s experience of it. The way Solo weaves these two tensions is masterful: the suffering of the unconditioned, and the specificity in this brutal portrayal — “so i step right out. there is no amount of crying i can do for you,” he writes somewhere in the middle of a daytime description of making lunch — feels like an intrusion. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The connective tissue across all three of his poetry books, however, is the notion of the girl. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I tried to ask him about this some years back, when ‘worlds’ was only just a concept; since it would end on as much of a cliffhanger as a three-part anthology could: a love recognised, blossomed, lost. But ‘worlds’ feels incomplete, as is. I asked him if there would be a next book. A part four, of what is currently a three-part tragedy. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I wish. I mean, I would love that. But at this point, I don’t think I’m there yet. I would love to get there, it’s just— it’s not up to me.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The mysterious and yet sincere answer could be read a million different ways, just like the implicit story between a man and the woman he loves, across three anthologies. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> To quote the general sentiment of nearly everyone who has ever read his poetry: the girl is very special, indeed. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> — Cassian Andor for GQ.com, “Review of ‘the world between worlds’: an immediate and unfinished classic” (July 2018)  </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>
  <em> 6: </em>
</p>
<p>The third and real reason she finally, after ten years, decides to message him first for no reason at all is that she finds a fifth poem.</p>
<p>It was enough incentive and at the very least, it’s something she could build up to ask about. </p>
<p>It’s not a big deal, <em> it’s not. </em></p>
<p>(This is a lie.)</p>
<p>She is standing at her kitchen counter, two empty bottles of beer beside her; she is aware he is in a different time zone right now. It’s late where he is, maybe. So if he doesn’t reply (god bless Zorrii’s logic), that could mean he is simply asleep. Or maybe he was mauled by a bear. Or having great sex with a very beautiful dark-haired French model in a hotel by the Seine.</p>
<p><em> It’s okay</em>, Rey thinks. <em> It’s just a stupid text. </em></p>
<p>Even if he never answers, it’s okay.</p>
<p>(This is the biggest lie of all.) </p>
<p>Her thumb nail is bitten down to a stub, she has spent over an hour crafting her message, and when finally she hits send, she drops her phone on her countertop like a hot potato and runs around her living room because <em> fuck. </em> Fuck, <em> fuck, what have I done, shit— </em></p>
<p>The ding of a new message.</p>
<p>Rey stubs her toe against her couch and hops to the kitchen in a string of crip profanities.</p>
<p>&lt;<em>Sat, 12 Apr, 7:07 PM</em>&gt;</p>
<p>
  <em> hi, ben. :)  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Rey what’s up? Are you ok? </em>
</p>
<p>She is shaking as she stares at his reply. Her brows furrow and she wonders if she should at least give him the courtesy of figuring out what time it is, where he’s at.</p>
<p>Wherever he’s at.</p>
<p>Ben was often away on very little notice; he’s based in the same city, sure, but “based” is a term loosely used.</p>
<p>The fact of him constantly leaving New York — and her, by extension— is something she prefers to keep <em> as far away </em>from her psyche as possible.</p>
<p>Better to pretend that he’s a ghost, and not a man who can hurt her if she lets him.</p>
<p>He texts again before she could reply:</p>
<p>
  <em> Where are you? Do you want me to call? My phone is about to die but I can call you as soon as I’m back at the hotel </em>
</p>
<p>She replies: <em> where are u? </em></p>
<p>
  <em> Out jogging. Be back soon tho </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> sorry i mean, *where. like, general area haha </em>
</p>
<p>(“Haha”? What is she, <em> twelve? </em>Rey cringes after hitting send.)</p>
<p>Ben replies immediately: <em> London </em></p>
<p>Rey is surprised: <em> isnt it like 1 in the morning??  </em></p>
<p>
  <em> 1:10. Seriously are you ok? </em>
</p>
<p>And then another one:</p>
<p>
  <em> Rey don’t go anywhere I’m sprinting back to my room my phone is going to die I’ll text in 15. </em>
</p>
<p>She puts her phone down; the flurry of joy she feels whenever she’s talking to him fills her up and she’s smiling to herself in the quiet of her apartment.</p>
<p>(Or maybe it’s the beer.)</p>
<p>He texts again in exactly twelve minutes: </p>
<p>
  <em> Hello. Rey? </em>
</p>
<p>She doesn’t have to reply;</p>
<p>There is a reason she has never felt comfortable talking to him about his books and his works and his career.</p>
<p>The process of writing, they share a love of. His creativity and artistry has never failed to be interesting to her. She would like to live in his mind, if she could. And she does, she tries, whenever he texts. Permission for twenty-four hours.</p>
<p>But alas, she cannot talk to him about his books.</p>
<p>That topic draws too closely to questions she isn’t sure she wants the answers to. </p>
<p>Namely, about the someone — or<em> someones </em> — that he dedicates his works to.</p>
<p>(<em>For the one, </em> he had prefaced his short, fantastical science-fiction story about two lovers on opposing sides of a galactic war, back in their last semester in Chandrila. <em> May I bleed for her in another world, since I cannot bring myself to even gaze upon her in this one.</em>)</p>
<p>(Right after realising she was deathly in love with him, came the realisation of how much it would kill her, to realise that he would be in love with someone else.)</p>
<p>She could walk away now. She could just… <em> not </em>text back. He wouldn’t mention it. Everything would go back as it always was: she would be able to keep him in her life, and maybe even be invited to his wedding someday, see a beautiful woman walk down the aisle towards him in all-white—</p>
<p>She starts typing, thumb shaking. (She can blame it on the alcohol later.) She replies:</p>
<p>
  <em> hi yes. am here :) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Good. </em>
</p>
<p>And he texts again: <em> What’s up? Is anything wrong? </em></p>
<p>Rey types something, meaning to delete it, but her slightly inebriated thumbs are drunk on power and other ideas:</p>
<p>
  <em> can i call? </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p>It is both utterly awkward, and deeply comforting. To hear his voice.</p>
<p>
  <em>"Hello?” </em>
</p>
<p>“Ben? Hi. Um— hi. Hi, how are you?”</p>
<p>
  <em>"I’m fine. What’s going on?”</em>
</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>She hears him huff. <em>“I’m— sorry, I’m just worried. You never call.” </em></p>
<p>This stills her. Because it’s true. She never calls. He had always been the one to call. He had always been the one to text first, too.</p>
<p>Huh.</p>
<p>“Um… I’m sorry. For that,” she tells him. Something painful and deep lodging itself in her lungs.</p>
<p>“<em>For what?” </em></p>
<p>Everything. “Not… y’know. Calling. Never calling.”</p>
<p>A pause, and then: <em> “Yeah— No, no, no, don’t worry about that. It’s — I mean, it’s fine. I don’t… uh, it’s not a big deal. Well, I mean, I would love to hear your…. voice. But. Yeah. No, uh, apologies. None necessary.” </em></p>
<p>By the end of this, Rey finds her cheeks straining. From smiling, and some other emotion trying to split her face.</p>
<p>She misses him. She really, really misses him. </p>
<p>“Ben?”</p>
<p>The short, quiet pause at the other end contains multitudes. <em>“Yeah?” </em></p>
<p>“Is it— would it be so terrible if I said that I just— I, um, called because I miss hearing your voice?” </p>
<p>Rey winces and prepares herself for the worst;</p>
<p>What she hears, however, is a very soft inhale. </p>
<p>
  <em>“No. No, I don’t think so.” </em>
</p>
<p>Rey feels like she can finally breathe, but as she sinks down to sit and relax on the floor of her kitchen, she hears him speak in a strained, low tone:</p>
<p>
  <em> “I miss hearing your voice, too.” </em>
</p>
<p>She feels her heart break.</p>
<p>“You do?”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Yes. Always.” </em>
</p>
<p>Rey thinks of nine o’clocks in the Raddus library; she thinks of the unaffordable double-shot hazelnut lattes, no whip, that he always got her; she thinks of a tall, beautiful boy who was too quiet, and of how much he must have tried not to be so very quiet around her; she thinks of erotic literature, of reddened ears and shared glances and snickers in the lecture hall; she thinks of long walks in campus, of lonely Boston winters and not-so-lonely Christmas surprises when he’d send her postcards. She thinks of a hundred different moments she refused to believe, because she couldn’t.</p>
<p>She thinks of an impossible <em> always, </em>and how perhaps it wasn’t so impossible after all.  </p>
<p>Her cheeks feel warm. Stupid beer.</p>
<p>“<em>Rey? </em>”</p>
<p>Hearing her name grated across four thousand miles, and she knows, now. The multitudes. The breathlessness.</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why did you call?” </em>
</p>
<p>He sounds as broken as she feels.</p>
<p>If the tears succeed, they will ransack her. So she holds her ground; finds a way to have the most difficult conversation of her life through what feels like a boulder sitting in the middle of her chest.</p>
<p>“So, um. I found your poems.”</p>
<p>Silence. Heavy, now; crushing, condensed multitudes. </p>
<p> “And I— I saw a few, really, and I didn’t— of course, I could never, um— I didn’t know who wrote them. I thought it could have been you but that would be <em> ridiculous </em> but—”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Rey.”</em>
</p>
<p>“The last one I saw was— it had a title.”</p>
<p>Rey waits for him to comment. To rebut, to tell her it’s a mistake, to laugh or deny or lie. He doesn’t.</p>
<p>He waits for her.</p>
<p>Both of them, waiting for each other.</p>
<p>And how terribly, tragically poetic is that?</p>
<p>“‘<em>On matters of sunshine</em>’<em>,” </em>Rey finally says the words out loud. Closes her eyes, bites down on the weight of the years on her tongue. She would laugh, but she bites that down, too. </p>
<p>
  <em>“Rey.”</em>
</p>
<p>“Why did you—What are these?”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Rey—” </em>
</p>
<p>“I just, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why… you would write all these in my books and notebooks, I...”</p>
<p>The only sounds she hears, for a while, is the rhythmic pounding of her heartbeat, until:</p>
<p>
  <em>“You… really don’t know?” </em>
</p>
<p>Frustration turns to sadness turns to hope turns to madness.</p>
<p>“Don’t know <em> what? </em>” she says, and if she sounds a little harsh, she hopes he can forgive her. </p>
<p>He has the <em> audacity </em>to grunt, and it would piss her off, were it not for the mental image of him scrubbing a large hand over his face in defeated exhaustion.</p>
<p><em> God, </em>she misses him.</p>
<p>
  <em>"You’re gonna make me say it?” </em>
</p>
<p>“You’re not making any sense—”</p>
<p><em>"I thought I could write you out of my system</em>,” he tells her all at once, letters tripping after themselves, garbled across an ocean and ten years, worked against something that sounds like desperation. <em>“I tried—fuck, I tried for years. I thought the feelings would… fade or at least not hurt so much after a while but it didn’t work. It didn’t work, and I’m sorry, Rey, but I didn’t— I thought you knew. All this time, I thought...</em>”</p>
<p>“Ben.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“I wrote those before graduating. They were… a last-ditch attempt. But I always thought— Rey. You must have known?” </em>
</p>
<p>There is a thud, when she leans her head against the kitchen cabinets where she’s sitting on her floor. The shaky revelation stitches itself together, bit by bit, until the picture becomes clearer.  </p>
<p>“I didn’t,” she tells him plainly, but there’s a bittersweet smile and her eyes and throat feel really hot. “I had no— I didn’t know, Ben. I couldn’t— that’s <em> impossible, </em>you were this... incredibly brilliant, gifted friend and I was just—” </p>
<p>
  <em>“Rey."</em>
</p>
<p>“There was no way. No way, this— this isn’t real,” Rey is chuckling now, watery words that float out of her very hazy sense of reality. “I thought you— couldn’t you tell? I was so convinced you knew how hopelessly I was into you.”</p>
<p>There is silence, and then a single, emphatic, <em>“What?!”</em></p>
<p>She laughs now, and her cheeks are wet. “I was into you, Ben. I was so, so into you.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“You— you said you wanted to be just friends.” </em>
</p>
<p>“I said, I hoped we could still be friends! Because I thought you were in love with some other girl! It’s what you said, wasn’t it, it was in that short story—”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Jesus Christ, that was about you!” </em>
</p>
<p>Flattened, ringing, overwhelming multitudes.</p>
<p>The silence goes on for a moment, and she is dreaming, she must be <em>fucking dreaming</em>, and then:</p>
<p>
  <em>“That was about you. It’s always been. All of it, every— Fuck, I thought I was being obvious or at least you would have mentioned the poems by now or, or something, I thought—” </em>
</p>
<p>“You thought I would even <em> think </em> that the most amazing, gifted, talented person I have ever, <em> ever </em> known in my life could possibly be in love with me?! Is that it?”</p>
<p>If she sounds spiteful, she hopes he’ll forgive her again.</p>
<p>He’s quiet, for a little bit, and Rey worries her lip, afraid that she’s shown a little too much of her heart, for comfort.</p>
<p>
  <em>“You’ve got it completely backwards, sweetheart. Completely."  </em>
</p>
<p>He chokes on his words, and that’s how Rey loses the battle against her emotions, and she’s cupping her eyes as she sobs, silently, in overwhelming grief. For ten years, and for all that she’s never realised. For everything.</p>
<p><em>“Are you crying?” </em>he asks, the words cracked and choked.</p>
<p>“Are you?” she bites back, but perhaps with a smile this time.</p>
<p>
  <em>“I want to see you.”   </em>
</p>
<p>She chuckles with nervous, terrifying happiness. “I don’t… think that’s a good idea, I have shitty internet here and my phone always breaks down on video call and I’m a mess right now—”</p>
<p>
  <em>“No, Rey, I want — I want to see you. I need to see you. This weekend.” </em>
</p>
<p>“It’s alright, give me a few minutes, I’ll just... clean myself up and we can—”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Rey, no. I need to see you. In person. Please.” </em>
</p>
<p>Rey pauses from scraping the wetness off her cheeks with shaky fingers. “You’re in London.”</p>
<p>
  <em> “Oh, right, of course. I didn’t know that.” </em>
</p>
<p>She snorts, but the implications aren’t lost on her. “Ben—”</p>
<p>
  <em> “I think I heard about this thing called airplanes—” </em>
</p>
<p>“Ben!” and she’s laughing now, and she has never felt so much joy. “You’re crazy. You’re ridiculous—”</p>
<p>“<em>I’m not. I’m just in love with you.” </em></p>
<p>.:. </p>
<p>
  <em> i keep a yellowed page of my class notes; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i learned to write because i couldn’t bear to look at you and my fingers tried to do what my eyes have failed to; i looked away when you came near; i learned how your oversugared drink can’t taste like shit because at least they touched your mouth, and in that way, i feel like i’ve lost to a fucking hazelnut latte. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i keep a picture of you in my brain; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> every part of you the light once touched; i keep forgetting how much time i spent looking and not looking and you’ve made me nothing more than a place to store memories; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i keep dreaming of you; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> where i wear your limbs around my body, where i carry you to the kitchen and you fuck me on the floor and there’s grease stains on your elbows and our skin is made of four pm light that finds us half-naked and sticky and stuck; i make you laugh while i’m inside you and you buck and throw your head back. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i keep losing you; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and i’m staring at you across the hall and the professor is lecturing about why i should write about how you taste and she’s making a great case; i have half of this down and half of it erased. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i keep you; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> in a world between worlds, in a place that should exist; i keep you amidst all this.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> — excerpt from ‘on matters of sunshine’ from “what i have to do” (2011), by Ben Solo  </em>
</p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p><b> <em>Okay, Solo. Let’s talk about it: Pulitzer.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [laughs] Oh my god, Pulitzer. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>When you published “the 1”, was that just a continuation of the Solo anthology trilogy? Is that— can I call it that?</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> Well, yes and no. It was, I guess, the logical next part of those three books. I had no idea, though. I hadn’t read the rest of the trilogy before I started working on it.  </em></p>
<p><b> <em>You’re shitting me.</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> No, no, I know. It’s crazy. It really is. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>How could you not have read them?!</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> I couldn’t! Well, back then, at least. The story is all there, if you squint. That’s— it’s really what “the 1” is all about. I’m very proud of it, but only because, I guess, in a way, it was all building up to this, I guess, culmination. This one story, that is now finished neatly and wrapped in a bow and, you know, is out there in the world, for anyone who, um, I guess, needs to believe in love and poetry again. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>And did you think “Oh, let me just win all the awards with this masterpiece.”</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> Never. Never, ever. Not in a million years, oh god. I screamed when I found out and I called my agent — well, </em> our <em> agent — and asked her to stop pranking me. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I heard you once thought your husband was dating his agent.</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [laughs] Yes, oh my god, that’s embarrassing but it’s true. It’s all in there. There’s a poem about it in “the 1”. All my insecurities, in fine print. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I gotta say, “the 1” is very melodramatic. Which Solo should we thank for that?</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> [laughs] Oh, him! Definitely him. One hundred percent, it’s all his fault. He’s the dramatic one between the two of us, for sure. I only pined after him for a good decade, because he was so dramatic. But he’s the poet, so. I can’t really blame him for his brand, you know? </em></p>
<p><b> <em>I, mean, you </em> </b> <b>did</b> <b> <em> also win a Pulitzer for poetry, so I don’t know about that.</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> [laughs] Touché.</em></p>
<p><b> <em>I’m gonna shoot my shot here, because the internet will kill me if I don’t: when can we expect a joint Solo interview?</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> [laughs] Maybe someday. We are working together on a few things.</em></p>
<p><b> <em>Can I call first dibs on that?</em> </b> <b> <em><br/>
</em> </b> <em> [laughs] You know how much he hates interviews. You gotta catch him in the right mood, I'm afraid. </em></p>
<p><b> <em>Thanks for the time, Rey. Say hi to the Mr. Solo for me.</em> </b> <em><br/>
</em> <em> I will! And you’re very welcome. </em></p>
<p><em><br/>
</em> <em> — Poe Dameron for TIME magazine, “And The Muse Speaks: Rey Solo on her Pulitzer, her wild prose, and the poetic love affair that has captivated the world” (October 2022)   </em></p>
<p>.:.</p>
<p><em> in my defense, i have none </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> for digging up the grave another time </em><br/>
<em> but it would've been fun </em><br/>
<em>if you would've been the one</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Asides from the seminal "feel-good hit of the summer", which stands as one of my absolute favourite fics of all time, a huge thanks to Fran (@galacticidiots), Queen of the Alternate Universes, for the tweet that started this whole story, and for Jess (@bobaheadshark) for organising this wonderful anthology!</p>
<p>And to Robbie (@thehobbem), who has tolerated me stressed &amp; yelling about too many things all week. ILY always. :)</p>
<p>For Aubrey (@IvyOdessa), a dear friend. &lt;3</p>
<p>And special thanks to Taylor (@taylorswift13), a known Reylo, for giving all the Reylos the very Reylo gift that is Folklore. :))))</p></blockquote></div></div>
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